Roundtable on ::ahem:: Non-Western SF

I seem to recall The Simpsons having a hard time in overseas markets in early years because a lot of the humor didn’t translate. I think Seinfeld ran into similar problems. On the literary front, I’ve been told by several Russian readers that the humor of Dostoyevsky ‘s novels has been lost in their English translations. But maybe that’s a dark Russian joke my poor Anglophone brain just doesn’t get.

Karen Joy Fowler

If that’s a joke, it’s a really funny one!

Stefan Dziemianowicz

It would make sense that films and programs based around verbal humor don’t always translate well outside of western markets. Whereas action films do perform well overseas. John Carter of Mars did much better box office internationally than it did in the United States–in fact, it broke records in Russia.

Marie Brennan

Yes, it came up a lot in my folklore and anthropology classes that humour doesn’t translate very well. There are certain basic patterns in what people find funny, but the way those patterns play out tends to be very culture-bound, depending on a million and one contextual elements that the foreigner may not get. (Which is true of lots of other things, too — but humour, more than most, tends to lose its punch if you have to stop and think about it.)

Paul Witcover

In Russian, they are uproarious farces, especially The Karamazov Brothers. On the other hand, Gogol in Russian is somber, humorless, pedantic, mundane. Go figure.

Guy Gavriel Kay

The laugh a minute Karamazovs, with the famous stateroom scene! Alas, they were all Zeppo.

Stefan Dziemianowicz

Didn’t Woody Allen channel the antic spirit of Dostoevsky for Love and Death? (Uh-oh, I see the needle on the digressionometer inclining toward the red.)

Guy Gavriel Kay

Stefan, never accept being called jejune! You are the junest man in all Locus!

18 thoughts on “Roundtable on ::ahem:: Non-Western SF”

I find this discussion disappointing. Can you not see what Fabio is trying to achieve here? What imbalances he is trying to redress? It’s a shame that when the question was about non-Western SF/F, the participants spent such an inordinate amount of time unpacking Western SF. The issue of post-colonialism is far too grave for a simple question to be picked apart in such a fussy, academic manner, and the real issues sidestepped.

SF is the literature of the imaginary. How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to this literature?

Great question, Fabio. As you know, I’m developing an anthology of first encounters from cultural perspectives beyond the western. How would people’s culture affect an alien encounter differently than Western cultures? I have done a lot of work, travel and study in various places from Africa to Europe to your own Brasil, and I have found rich cultures and peoples with diverse and fascinating customs and beliefs. I believe there are things they know, wisdom and insights, that the rest of us might benefit from. For example, the traditional cultural views of community in many African nations, for example, where everyone belongs to everyone and everything you do affects the community as a whole, is very inspiring and could be very helpful in our “me first” culture of the U.S. The way Latin American families take care of their sick and elderly, even living peacefully with multiple generations in a house, this too is inspiring. Attitudes toward future, conservation, sharing, economy, health, etc. So many things which may push us outside our boxes and comfort zones but, at the same time, may open our eyes to a bigger world than we’d imagined. These have great benefit for speculative fiction readers and for fellow writers. Opening my eyes to new cultural viewpoints has both changed me and solidified my own views. I don’t shy away from it because it’s different. I seek to understand the reasoning behind it and the motives, knowing that, while I may disagree or not entirely agree, they are also human beings of equal value and as a writer, being able to see things from different POV is invaluable to my success.

The global reality is so much bigger than what we typically see. It’s good to be forced outside that sometimes and willingly step outside as well, take the blinders off or have them washed away and be refreshed in our own view.

To clarify this discussion, the original prompt was: “Fabio Fernandes is in the middle of a fundraising effort to support a special International issue of the magazine Future Fire” followed by the question. There was no mention of colonialism or first-world perspectives. I think having those contexts supplied would have resulted in a different discussion.

I found this round-table frustrating on several aspects. It’s sad that because there was no “explicit” mention of colonialism or first-world perspectives it would not be considered crucial to the discussion.

I think the fact that Fabio is doing an anthology of non-Western perspectives on Colonialism is becoming too central. It’s obvious that was added to frame the discussion by an editor. It appears, per Siobhan’s comment, it was not sent to the commentators for framing their discussion, so they cannot be expected to read minds and discuss this topic in that framework. The fact that Colonialism is important is not being denied or negated. And it can be discussed now in these comments if people so desire.

I’d like to apologize for the shifting frame between the original discussion and what you see on the website. I added the summary pitch for Fabio’s Peerbacker effort after the fact, and the Roundtable group didn’t see it originally. I can imagine a significantly different discussion that may have occurred had that been part of the original topic, and with luck we’ll have that discussion in the future.

It’s clear that people care deeply about this topic, and I hope that concern will translate to a higher profile for The Future Fire’s fundraising efforts. As of now only two people have clicked through on the Peerbacker link, and I *really* hope that number goes up.

@Siobhan: how can you read the question “How can the imaginations of writers from outside the Western narrative contribute new perspectives to SF?” without seeing that it’s about colonialism and first-world perspectives?

@Regina – I assumed this was a discussion about translation, and I therefore read “outside the Western narrative” as “unaffected by the historical narrative created by colonialism.” In other words, I thought the question was explicitly taking postcolonial writers *off* the table. That’s why, in my initial response, I asked whether “the ‘Western narrative’ encompass former European colonies.” That’s also why I ended my initial response with the suggestion that we think about living non-Anglophone writers and segued into a list of postcolonial works we could discuss. In short, I wanted to analyze postcolonial SF but I thought (as, apparently, did many of the other respondents) that the context of this dicsussion was “international” SF, broadly defined.

I’ll add that I found the “how *can* the imaginations… contribute new perspectives to SF” formulation a bit off-putting — as though SF writers from different countries weren’t already making contributions to SF by writing fiction. I jumped in feet-first in part because I didn’t want a rambling discussion of “well, maybe other people *can* contribute if they do x y or z.” I wanted to talk about the contributions contemporary authors had actually made and were currently making.

I don’t know whether it’s just me or if everyone else experiencing problems with your blog.
It looks like some of the written text on your content are running off the screen.
Can somebody else please comment and let me know
if this is happening to them too? This may be a issue with my
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